The Short Memoir Of A Nameless Red Dragon Member
by Pouncing Fossa
Summary: You know those Red Dragon members? The ones that are always shooting but never hit, and they're alwasy first to die? Well, here's the indepth story of one of the Nameless- and oh, it is pitiful.. We hardly knew you, oh nameless gangster....


I flicked my old Zippo lighter open, and as I tipped the flame to my cigarette, I felt a strange sense of freedom. It was odd, really- the brick walls surrounding me in the cold blackness of the night didn't lend themselves to feelings of freedom, and the job I had, hanging around outside the HQ to look for any possible dissenters wasn't exactly your most liberating of employments anyway. But hell, it was a living, and what with the money and all, I could buy my own apartment- for a twenty six year old man a few years out of college, it wasn't bad.

I puffed calmly away at the cigarette, my eyes training themselves to the blackness, and picking up the shapes of passing cars- I counted the makes off in my head. Buick. Volvo. Hyundai. Some expensive stuff, some cheap stuff- you get all sorts of people out here, I guess- rich ones with those Afghan dogs and the poor ones with their twenty children- they all sort of shared the streets. It was sort of cute. Progressive.

Yeah, college- those were the days. Sure, there were the typesetting classes, the reporting classes, all the history classes required for a journalism major- but besides that, there were the party's and the fucking off when you were supposed to be doing something productive and the general feeling that you were finally getting out of your low grade high school and moving up in the world, moving into a job where you didn't have to flip hamburgers or day or shovel papers- a job where you could write and let your heart out onto that page. It was that feeling of hope that was all over that college, and that was why I'd loved it. I still remember it, almost every day- a little fixated with my past, maybe, but it's something to think about, during my guard duty- I could write haiku in my head or something, but that's no fun, not manly.

I flicked the ashes of my cigarette to the ground and shifted against the wall, the thick fibers of my deep black trench coat scratching uncomfortably against the bricks. Someone shouted from down the street, and I was alert, deadly alert, for a short moment- but it was just some guy calling a cab. Probably got kicked out by his wife or something- I've got a bad tendency to expect the worse. Maybe that's why I never made it as a journalist, maybe that's why I never got employed at the real offices- because I couldn't be positive enough, I couldn't embellish the truth, I couldn't make the news work for whoever was popular at the time. I tried, and my resume always got thrown out in those wire trashcans you find in all offices- and maybe I stopped trying. Maybe that's why I fell in with the crime syndicate- I could shoot a gun, I could fight a bit, I had a good enough head on my shoulders to keep me out of the really deep shit-and though I wasn't leader material, I was good enough for a cut of the money and some job security. And it isn't such a bad life- makes family reounonins a bit iffy, true, but that can be evaded and wheedled and weaseled around- it's all about how you play the game, and I think I've learned that, at least. And my girlfriend doesn't mind. She thinks it's a job, and she doesn't care where the money comes from as long as I'm buying food and as long as I'm happy. God, she's such a beautiful woman, she's such a perfect woman- once we get enough money, we're getting out somehow, we're going off somewhere better, getting out of the neighborhood, get married maybe. And it'll be just perfect, just like those godamn cute paintings on those women's magazines- the whole happy family, the faithful dog. I like dogs. I miss them. And we'll have one of those dogs and a big brick house and one of those nice green lawns that aren't ever yellow- just perfect.

I heard a car screeching a little awkwardly down the street, and I sort of half heartedly looked up, not really caring one way or another- it was probably just some drunk official, coming back from another weasel session- wasn't like he was driving badly enough to smash into the curb and kill me. I'd nearly been run over a couple of times, by very drunk packs of guys, and I didn't want to risk it again. I moved to the entrance, near the door, drew my cheap handgun- you never know, and I'm paid to be a paranoid little fuck anyway. Car stopped, some guy in a trench coat came out- he had this damn stupid fluffy hair-, and I decided this just might be worth reporting- you never know. I gave the guy in a trench coat a sort of warning look, and I walked in the sliding glass doors, dropping ashes all over the carpeted floors. Janitor doesn't mind, though- at least it wasn't a cigar.

The man in the trench coat was coming in the door, and I was sure as hell surprised at the reactions of the higher ups who were milling around in the usual fashion- was a guy with fluffy hair really that exciting? Still, I turned off the safety on my gun- you never know, you never know. I kept an eye on him, and I guess I saw the explosive he kicked over next to me, maybe I saw the fuse. I tried to get away but I knew I wasn't going to make it and as I saw that bastard in a trench-coat running up the escalator, a single, last sad thought ran through my mind- the guy in the black coat who stands around in the lobby always gets it. He's always going to be blown up or shot or eaten, because he has no name and the character designer spent two minutes on his animation, and because he's just there and you don't know his back story and he just might as well die. And dammit, that's just un-fair. It's not right, never was right, and it's been going on for ages, and I was just too dumb to realize that somewhere along the way I had become one of those Men Who Wear Black. We were people too, we had lives and we fell in love and we were human beings.

And for the love of god, they could at least give us some dental insurance.


End file.
